I do, he does: who marries us?

February 10, 2013 7:36 PM

Please talk to me about your experiences with interfaith wedding ceremonies (specifically, Catholic/non-Catholic.)

So, my fiance and I are getting hitched (!!!!) This is extremely exciting, and I am very excited about it. However, I come from an Irish Catholic family. He does not. I am not especially religious now, but I am Catholic, and I don't especially want to separate myself entirely from the church by getting married. He is extremely opposed to having the church involved at all. I don't have a relationship with my local parish, though I think I'm still a member of my parish growing up. (I am only a few years out of college.) We had already decided to try to hold it in one of the many local historic sites, not in a church, but I'm getting overwhelmed with not only trying to broach the subject to my family, but with the dispensation process in general. Have you been or been a part of a Catholic/non-Catholic wedding? What were the compromises you made? What was the process like? We both respect each other's principles, but we recognize that compromises will have to be made. Thank you.

We're in the greater Philadelphia area, if that helps, or if you have any specific recommendations for a priest/pre-marital counsellor.

posted by anonymous to Religion & Philosophy (17 answers total)

My cousin is a Franciscan priest, and he "co-starred" with the Protestant ministers in both my brothers' weddings to non-Catholics.
posted by xingcat at 7:48 PM on February 10, 2013

It depends whether he's baptized. This is the Philadelphia Archdiocese policy on where you can hold a wedding.
posted by Jahaza at 7:48 PM on February 10, 2013

I'll just answer about the dispensation process.

I am not Catholic; my husband is. We got married in my church (Episcopal) because I had a stronger connection to my church than he did. But he wanted the wedding to be recognized by the Catholic Church (and have a Catholic priest there), so he went and found a parish he liked and went through the dispensation process.

The whole process went something like this:

We had to meet with the parish wedding coordinator (a very nice nun) and the priest who was going to be at our wedding (it wasn't con-celebrated because Catholics don't do that, but he did participate in the ceremony by pronouncing blessings, etc.).

We had to show that we had done premarital counseling (which we did with my church, as it was required by them also).

We had to take a (pretty useless) class on natural family planning.

We also had to state a reason the dispensation was needed -- or, I should say, I had to state a reason why I (the non-Catholic) would not consent to a Catholic wedding (or, a wedding in a Catholic church); I think there was a selection, including that it would cause family problems (which is what I said, which is sort of true and sort of...not true...but anyway).

All that being said, your experience is likely to be at least somewhat different because it sounds like you are not planning a religious wedding at all and it sounds, in fact, like your fiance isn't a Christian. Things will probably differ from parish to parish on how loose they're willing to be with a marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic (we were lucky that the parish we worked with was pretty low key about the whole thing), but I think you might have some trouble finding a parish that will be as loose for a wedding where one person is a non-Christian.

The good news is that it can be done! My aunt (Catholic) married a Jew, and they got married in a hotel ballroom with a priest present, though he didn't do the ceremony. But the priest will have to get permission from his bishop and I imagine that process will involve at least some cooperation on the part of your fiance.

posted by devinemissk at 7:54 PM on February 10, 2013

Eh - your biggest issue is that you don't want to get married in a church rather than the fact that your partner is not baptized. I'm not baptized and my wife's families rather conservative parish priest was happy to marry us with a mass as long as I consented to raise the children catholic - which you know - isn't exactly binding. There was just some extra paperwork to be done compared to a marriage between two baptized but not catholic folks - but it was more a bureaucratic issue more than anything else. Really not a big deal.

But not wanting to get married in a church pretty much precludes a priest from conducting a catholic wedding. So you can have a priest and have them offer prayers or something, or what some of my friends have done was find a monk or a priest who has left the church to perform a full wedding (tho no mass).
posted by JPD at 8:33 PM on February 10, 2013

My Catholic sister and her Jewish husband got married in a non-religious setting (though a chuppah was still created). A rabbi led the ceremony and did the actual marrying bits, a priest just sort of gave a blessing.

The biggest compromises you will be making are:
1) No mass and the priest won't be leading the ceremony. This can be a deal-breaker for Catholic relatives who are expecting a "proper" Catholic marriage ceremony.

2) You may have to "shop around" for a priest. This can be a problem if you have your heart set on a priest you know giving his blessing.
posted by Wossname at 8:50 PM on February 10, 2013

My parents' wedding was between a Catholic and non-catholic.

JPD: my wife's families rather conservative parish priest was happy to marry us with a mass as long as I consented to raise the children catholic - which you know - isn't exactly binding.

FWIW, my mom (the Catholic) took that commitment as binding, which had a profoundly negative effect on my relationship with her for many years. In my mind the most important discussion to have around this is how you'll deal with any kids you might have.
posted by jon1270 at 3:58 AM on February 11, 2013

The Catholic Church no longer requires the non-Catholic spouse to agree to raise the children Catholic, just so you know. They just ask that both parties consider it in good conscience.
posted by devinemissk at 4:11 AM on February 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was Catholic, my then fiancee Baptist. We took the easy route and eloped to HI where we didn't have to deal with all the family stuff. We got married in a park in a generic Christian ceremony. FWIW, today we are both atheists.

My Catholic relatives didn't seem to be too put out by how we did things. Looking back on it baptizing the kids Catholic was probably more important to them than the wedding ceremony. Both kids were baptized Catholic. Today they are teenage atheists.
posted by COD at 6:13 AM on February 11, 2013

Eh - your biggest issue is that you don't want to get married in a church rather than the fact that your partner is not baptized.

Whether or not her partner is baptized is the key to answering the question of whether not getting permission from the Archdiocese to be married outside a church (building) is easy or difficult (as indicated in the policy I linked.)
posted by Jahaza at 6:49 AM on February 11, 2013

I don't have a relationship with my local parish, though I think I'm still a member of my parish growing up. (I am only a few years out of college.)

Parishes are, for the most part, territorial. Strictly speaking, you are almost certainly canonically a member of the territorial parish closest to where you live. Registration, donation, attendence, etc. don't have any legal effect in most places. However, these rules are frequently fudged in practice. You won't really be able to tell who considers you a parishoner without talking to the parishes in question.
posted by Jahaza at 6:54 AM on February 11, 2013

So you don't currently have a relationship to a church where you live, aren't particularly religious, and it sounds like you've never been a church attending person while in your relationship with your fiance, or in your adult life. He is extremely opposed to having the church involved at all. I assume this means a churchy-type-building as well as the religious institution?

Is the issue that you look to the church for these Big Life Events, but it doesn't particularly impact the rest of your life? Do know that having a Catholic wedding will mean Lots of Involvement in the church. It doesn't sound like he's onboard for any of this.

You two should talk long and hard about the role the church will have in your lives through the wedding and after. Will you be attending church by yourself? Will your kids go to Sunday School? You two need to talk this out. Non-religious pre-marital counseling could be an option. A Practical Wedding's List of self-guided pre-marital questions can be a good start. These are the kinds of things that can break up marriages. Work them out before you head down the aisle.

Don't assume a Catholic wedding is the only or best option for the two of you. Don't let your family pressure you into doing something he's not comfortable with. There are many options for you. Secular officiants abound. Wedding Wire, is a good place to start looking, as is googling officiant + Philadelphia.

While the best solutions will be something you two come up with, I've heard of religious+non-religous couples compromising with the religious family by having a somewhat formal rehearsal dinner prayer with the family pastor/priest, and a secular wedding the following day.
posted by fontophilic at 9:16 AM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mod note: This is a followup from the asker.

You two should talk long and hard about the role the church will have in your lives through the wedding and after. Will you be attending church by yourself? Will your kids go to Sunday School? You two need to talk this out.

Yes, please be assured that we have had a considerable number of talks about the meaning and role of the Catholic Church in my life. He is baptized. This is not a decision that we have come to lightly. While I am not especially involved with a parish right now, that has not been true in the past, and being unable to be a godparent in the church or to take communion would be a huge issue for my immediate and extended family. A completely secular wedding (or PA's special self-uniting license) is no longer an option because of that. (I'm adding it to the list of things we didn't go over in CCD...)

I will speak to my local parish, but my parents have suggested speaking with the priests in my former parish, since it has substantially more cases of interfaith marriages and they seem much more friendly in discussing this kind of issue. The bulletin for yesterday was actually about this issue, which I was unfortunately sent after posting this. We are looking for a pre-marital counselor regardless, but the wedding won't be until next year, so we have some time. Thank you all for your thoughts.

posted by cortex (staff) at 9:40 AM on February 11, 2013

You don't have to be Catholic to be a godparent to a Catholic child. I am godfather to my niece. I am Presbyterian (former Catholic). The rule of thumb these days (at least in some areas) is that one godparent should be Catholic, both must be Christian.

But.... He is extremely opposed to having the church involved at all. speaks to all kinds of questions in my mind. You say he is baptized, but does he consider himself Christian? If he is anti-Christian due to a conscious decision to leave the church, and you are a Chreaster (i.e., Catholic at Christmas, Easter and large events like weddings), there may be a fundamental schism, so to speak, in your relationship.

Granted, you don't have to agree on everything, and there are lots of cases of atheists and Christians being happily married, but it sounds like you need to both understand how the other feels about religion, and how you will handle it as a married couple.
posted by Doohickie at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2013

Mod note: This is another followup from the asker.

but it sounds like you need to both understand how the other feels about religion, and how you will handle it as a married couple.

My apologies for not laying this out more clearly, but it's becoming a bit of a sidetrack-- please understand that we have had many, many discussions about religion and our respective relationships to it. That I am Catholic and that he was Catholic are both things we have known for years; my questions focused on the logistics of the marriage ceremony itself, because I hadn't realized the depth of the dispensation process or what it would require of both of us.

I would still welcome any personal experiences with getting a dispensation or creating a partially Catholic ceremony. Thank you all again.

posted by cortex (staff) at 12:21 PM on February 11, 2013

We got married in Colorado, and here, based on the Archdiocese's standing rule, getting married in the mountains in a pretty place instead of in a church was a dealbreaker; with that proviso, it couldn't be a catholic ceremony. So, we went with an outdoor wedding and no priest. We incorporated biblical readings into the ceremony, but aside from that it was not particularly Catholic.
posted by craven_morhead at 1:04 PM on February 11, 2013

So I can speak to the dispensation process - in the archdiocese of NY, which may be different from Philly, it was purely a bureaucratic process. There was a bunch of paperwork to fill out (which my wife did), and when we went to visit the priest of the parish we were getting married at (not my wife's home parish btw - there was another dispensation needed for that - again just paper work), I was asked a bunch of questions about my own faith. I answered them truthfully, I acknowledged that we were getting married in the church because it was very important to my wife that we be married in the church. I was truthful when I told them I was not interested in Catholicism, but that I was not opposed to any children we might have be baptized and would consider allowing them to be raised in the church. I was polite and respectful, and the priest was very respectful of my own disinterest in Catholicism. That's it. It was quite easy. Perhaps it would not have been if I had gone in their guns blazing anti-catholic - but it was much less of a big deal that I expected. He was much more uncomfortable with us living together than he was with me not being baptized.

My impression is that its a process, and if you are respectful and follow the process, they are not in the habit of refusing people permission to be married in the church.

To my earlier point we briefly entertained the idea of getting married at the site of our reception - and it was very quickly made clear to us by several priests that this would not be possible.

To be honest pre-cana was way worse, and the idiots who ran our class seemed more bothered by my non-baptized status than did any of the priests we came into contact with.
posted by JPD at 1:25 PM on February 11, 2013

OP, given your most recent update (That I am Catholic and that he was Catholic), I'll provide a little more context to my earlier response:

I also used to be Catholic. I went through 12 years of Catholic schooling and my paternal family is very, very, very, very Catholic. My mother is not Catholic (though she did RCIA several times, she never could convert) and when I was a teenager, I left the Catholic Church for the Episcopal Church. I am no fan of the Catholic church, and I have a lot of issues with my family's particular "brand" of Catholicism.

That being said, it was really important to me that my now-husband -- and particularly, his family -- be comfortable with our wedding. (I wanted my family to be comfortable, too, but they, by and large, weren't expecting a Catholic wedding from me, so that was less of a concern for me.) So we went through the process.

Let me tell you that it was not a super fun process -- the priest who baptized me was VERY rude and all but refused to work with us after I described the situation to him -- and the nun and priest at the parish where we eventually went through the process were definitely confused by the whole thing. I did not hide the ball -- I was very upfront that I had been Catholic, that I left the Catholic church for a variety of personal reasons, but that I respected my fiance's desire to have a Catholic wedding (and I wanted to make sure our Catholic relatives were comfortable). We discussed that I understood my now-husband was committing to do whatever was in his power to see that our children were brought up Catholic, and even discussed the ramifications of that. I made it clear that I have a negative history with the Catholic church -- but I also recognized that that is MY history, not my husband's.

I think that's the big compromise that the two of you are going to have to make -- he's going to have to recognize the importance of this to you, and you're going to have to recognize that it might be painful or uncomfortable for him to have these dealings with the church, especially if it means you end up having the wedding in a Catholic church.

Funny story, though -- because I was baptized Catholic, my wedding is recorded on my baptismal certificate like any other sacrament would be, and there's no indication that it wasn't performed by a Catholic priest or was otherwise a non-Catholic wedding. This was presented to me as a "plus" by the nun; I chose to view that with humor and good grace, rather than with annoyance and anger.
posted by devinemissk at 1:39 PM on February 11, 2013